Calling the Current Conversation is realised in SNETHA residency in Athens, Greece, as part of the Lost in Translation show with Maelle Gross, Kevin Hunt and curated by Irini Bachlitzanaki.

Calling the Current Conversation was first conceptualised by the artist and her project partner whom she met in a conference in Japan. Though acquainted for only two hours, they kept up a correspondence that led to a call-and-respond communication format through pictures via email, imagining the message behind the other’s image, and replying with an appropriate one.

A transnational project, these images chronicled personal narratives of moving, working or travelling across the cities of  Barcelona, Madrid (Spain), Venice, Milan, Bologna (Italy), Trikala, Athens (Greece), Birmingham (UK), Singapore, Fukuoka (Japan), Ho Chi Minh and Da Lat (Vietnam) from 2015 to 2016.

Emerging as captions and subtitles for the images, the messages in this project were realised in the residency in Greece, developed in English and Greek, alongside personal contributions from open studios, field research and Babel, a mental health care center for migrants in Athens.

Seemingly appearing as translations at first, these subtitles are actually disparate to the bilingual Greek-English reader, forcing them to confront the realities of processing and expression of two languages simultaneously.

Workings
Video by Athens Art Walk

Special thanks to Marianna, Hassan and Faribah of Babel whose interviews with me made the works possible.